The Baha'i Studies Listserv On 26 Jan 2009 at 6:05, David Friedman wrote: > The Baha'i Studies Listserv > > "This is the stage which the world is now approaching, the stage of > world unity, which, as Abdu'l-Baha assures us, will, in this century, > be securely established." (PDC)
I've discussed this on my blog at http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/century-of-light/ Basically, the phrase "this century" which appears so self-evident is not so simple: the underlying Persian terms do not necessarily mean "100 years" let alone 100 years in the Gregorian counting, and Shoghi Effendi's practice when translating the two Persian words (qarn and `asr) is to use a range of English terms: dispensation, age, generation, cycle, century, days, time.... So Shoghi Effendi obviously does not think that these terms mean "100 years." Even where he does translate qarn as century, he sometimes shows by context that he does not mean 100 years but rather the Bahai era: ..this wondrous revelation [duur], this glorious century [qarn] (The Promised Day is Come, p. 119) ..ere the close of this century [qarn] and of this age [`asr] (The World Order of Bahau'llah, p. 205) > How would one explain to a non-Baha'i that we already have world > unity, that the nations are already united? We don't. We - the world - don't have world unity or unity of nations, and we (the Bahais) don't try to claim that we do when we obviously don't. > How would one also argue that the unity of nations is securely > established, particularly with the invasion of Iraq this century? We can't: the unity of nations is mentioned in the 7 candles of unity. It is translated by Shoghi Effendi in the World Order of Baha'u'llah : "The fifth candle is the unity of nations [wahdat-e watan] - a unity which in this century [qarn] will be securely established, causing all the peoples of the world to regard themselves as citizens of one common fatherland." There's a previous translation by Shoghi Effendi in the Bahai World vol 2 pp 50-51 : The fifth candle is national unity [wahdat-e watan] which in this century will be securely established, causing all the peoples and nations of the world to regard themselves as citizens of one common fatherland. Wahdat is unity, watan means homeland: the idea is that there should only be one watan/homeland, which is the globe itself. The earth will be one country and mankind its citizens. We are not even close to that, not by centuries (old-style 100-year centuries). Even after the institutions and treaties required for the Lesser Peace are in place (which is still far away), many years and false starts will go by before all of the people of the world actually enjoy peace and security. I will not see it, I am afraid my children will also not see it. And then after that, it will take a generation or three before there is "unity of nations" in the sense that the world is "one homeland" . For comparison: Europe has had its lesser peace for 50 years, it is only 10 years or so ago that we all got the right to travel and live and work in every other country, and only now - because of that - is Europe actually becoming "one homeland." It is not yet one nation (it has no foreign policy for example), but there is a small but growing sense among the people that "Europe" is our homeland. I would say we have come 10% of the way to wahdat-e watan in Europe, and two or three more generations should complete the process (at the centre: Scandanavia will take longer, and I really wonder about the Brits). I think we need to rethink the tasks facing this generation of Bahais and the next in this perspective. Our primary tasks have to be building local Bahai communities and making them open to society (in old-fashioned terminology, consolidiation and teaching). The top-down model of the Lesser Peace arriving soon envisioned that the governments were about to form the lesser peace and would simultaneously recognise the Bahai Faith at the international level : During the last year, there was a sharp increase in the visits to the World Centre of high-ranking government officials, other dignitaries and media representatives, demonstrating the growing significance of the spiritual and administrative centre of the Faith in the eyes of the world. This appeared to underscore a trend towards a greater familiarity of the governments of the nations with the evolving centre of a World Faith. Viewing this trend from the Mountain of God, the site of the current construction projects, and considering it in conjunction with the developments taking place in local and national Bahá'í communities, we can appreciate more adequately the unfolding reality of the vision projected by Shoghi Effendi when he explained the implications of the raising up of buildings that will constitute the world administrative seat of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh. "This vast and irresistible process", he said, "will synchronize with two no less significant developments .. the establishment of the Lesser Peace and the evolution of Bahá'í national and local institutions". It is a vision which, given the state of the world, compels the completion of the Mount Carmel Projects as scheduled. (The Universal House of Justice, Ridvan 152, 1995) It's not going to happen that way. What is happening is the development of an open, horizontal, organic, global society, in which "government" and "the media" no longer have that huge central role, in which information is shared and trade and relationships are transacted person-to-person. It's the move from the centralised national societies of the modern era to the universal mycelium of post-modern society. The Bahai Faith will prosper in the new society, because it is designed for it; for the Bahai community to prosper it too will have to adjust to postmodernity, until it appears in the global social mycelium as a naturally-belonging part of it, not as a foreign body. It is not the familiarity of the governments of the nations that we must seek, but familiarity below the grassroots Sen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Sen McGlinn *** Let the friends recall and ever bear in mind the repeated exhortations and glowing promises of our beloved Master with reference to the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, the crowning institution in every Baha'i community. (Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i Administration, page 108) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:[email protected] Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
